Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hose reel deck box and, more specifically, to a hose reel deck box having a one-piece manual hose guide system.
Description of the Related Art
A hose reel deck box is a housing assembly supporting a hose reel. The hose reel includes a basket assembly having a barrel and a hand crank. The hose is wrapped about the barrel and the hand crank is coupled to the barrel. The crank may be coupled directly to the barrel or indirectly coupled via one or more gears. Both the crank and/or the barrel is/are, however, typically mounted on, and rotatably coupled to, the housing assembly. The hose may be full, or partially full, of water, or, empty as it is wound about the barrel. Regardless of the state of the hose, the weight of the hose creates torque on the housing assembly whenever the hose is wound up. Given a typical hose reel with generally square cross-section, the winding forces typically cause such a housing assembly to distort or “skew” into a non-rectangular parallelogram (diamond shape cross-section). The winding forces further apply stress in the area where the basket assembly is coupled to the housing assembly.
The housing assembly must be structured to resist the torque and other stresses applied thereto during the winding process. This may be accomplished by several known configurations. First, the housing assembly may be made from robust materials, typically metals. Such metal housing assemblies are expensive due to both material costs and assembly time. Second, plastic housing assemblies are typically less expensive than metal housings, but require extensive support structures, e.g. molded ribs (thin planar members) and braces, in order to resist the forces applied thereto. The forming of such support structures typically requires the sides of the housing assemblies to be formed separately and assembled. Moreover, as the sides are not identical, i.e. the sides that support the barrel are often mirror images, multiple molds are required. As such, the time and cost to produce and assemble a plastic housing is also more than is desirable. Third, the housing may be a combination of metal and plastic components, but these housing assemblies may include the disadvantages rather than the advantages of both materials.
The housing assembly must further provide for a number of functions or accomplish desired tasks. For example, the housing assembly must provide mountings for various components such as the barrel, the housing assembly must protect, and/or hide from view, the hose reel, and the housing assembly must be aesthetically pleasing to the user. The mountings for the barrel must resist local stresses caused by the winding forces noted above. This is typically accomplished by molding ribs and trusses, e.g. X-shaped ribs, into the sidewalls, especially along the edges of the sidewalls and/or a shaped mounting for the basket assembly into the plastic housing assembly sidewall. Such a mounting may rely upon its contoured shape to provide strength, and/or may include ribs or other support structures. Further, the hose reel deck box must be economical.
To reduce the cost of plastic housing assemblies, manufacturers have attempted to create housing assemblies consisting of as few pieces as possible. Cost reductions in the manufacturing process can be implemented by reducing the number of separate components and the time/effort required to assemble such various components. For example, it is typically less expensive to mold a mounting for a crank into a housing assembly sidewall than it is manufacture the mounting separately and couple it to the housing assembly sidewall. In theory, the assembly cost could be reduced to, essentially, zero if the housing assembly were a single molded piece. This reduction in cost must, however, be balanced against the cost of the mold and the manufacturing costs associated with complex molds, e.g. a higher failure rate. That is, complex shapes, such as a crank mounting, must be incorporated into the mold and must be constructed in such a way that the molds may be separated and the molded product may be separated from the molds. Further, the cavity in the mold used to create complex shapes may be difficult to fill with liquid plastic during the injection process resulting in the increased failure rate noted above.
Presently, it is known to mold a housing assembly wherein the four vertical sidewalls are a unitary piece. A top sidewall, and possibly a bottom sidewall, are added to complete the housing assembly enclosure. Alternately, the top sidewall may be included in the mold. That is, the sides, and possibly the top, of the housing assembly are molded as a “unitary housing.” The sidewalls include mounts for the crank, the hose reel, and other components. Such features are formed as contoured surfaces of the sidewall. However, because the contoured surfaces that form the basket assembly mounting must be structured to come off the mold, i.e. tapered in a specific direction as described below, the design of the mountings are controlled more by the molding process than by a desire to design a mounting structured to reduce stress or aesthetics. Typically, very few additional components are added to the unitary housing.
While use of a unitary housing reduces the assembly time, the unitary housing is difficult to mold, especially in light of the fact that this housing must resist most of the winding forces. Further, such a unitary housing typically includes a number of molded support ribs and other contoured surfaces structured to resist the winding forces; but these features are difficult to incorporate into a mold. Typically, a mold is pulled apart over a single axis, e.g. a top mold must be lifted vertically off a lower mold. Thus, and again assuming the molds are separated vertically, it would be impossible to have a horizontally extending element, such as a plurality of horizontal ribs, as the mold that is moved could not pass the ribs. Thus, the unitary housing component may only have a number of vertically extending ribs or similar contoured surfaces. These features resist skewing of the unitary housing.
While use of a unitary housing reduces assembly costs, the creation of such molds is very expensive and the extensive contouring leads to many deformations in the molded parts. Further, the limited type of support ribs, e.g. no X-shaped trusses, means that a unitary housing is less capable of resisting winding stresses than a structure that does includes more robust ribs. Further, the contoured mounting for the basket assembly typically has a shape that is less than pleasing and may include only vertical ribs on its inner surface. Further, while weak basket assembly mountings may not cause an instant failure, repeated stress causes the unitary housing component to wear out more quickly. Further, the functional contoured surfaces are not smooth and tend to be asymmetric. Such contouring is, generally, not considered to be as aesthetically pleasing as symmetrical flat sidewalls.
As noted above, one advantage of using a unitary sidewall in the housing is that the assembly time and cost for the hose reel is reduced. But even such unitary sidewall hose reels require some assembly, especially if the hose reel includes an “autotrack” device. As is known, an autotrack device is part of a hose winding system. The system typically includes a guide rod having a bi-directional track groove disposed thereon, a retaining rod, and a follower. The guide rod is coupled to the basket assembly drive. Thus, when a user turns the crank to take up the hose, the guide rod also rotates. The follower is a housing enclosing a tooth, or other construct, structured to be disposed in the guide bar bi-directional track groove. The follower is further coupled to, and structured to slide over, the retaining rod. The guide rod extends generally parallel to, but spaced from, the basket assembly axis of rotation.
In this configuration, the follower moves laterally back-and-forth over the guide rod as the hose is wound. That is, as the guide rod rotates, the tooth engages the surface of the bi-directional track groove. The follower's further engagement with the retaining rod prevents the follower from rotating with the guide rod, i.e. the follower remains in a fixed orientation while the guide rod rotates. This engagement of the tooth during rotation of the guide rod while the follower remains in a fixed orientation causes the follower to move along the groove. Thus, a hose that passes through the follower will be moved back-and-forth while the hose is being wound about the basket assembly thereby winding the hose is a regular pattern and spreading the wound hose over substantially the entire length of the basket assembly.
The disadvantage of such an autotrack is that the guide rod must be disposed in a passage within the follower, and more specifically the body of the follower, so as to allow the tooth to be maintained in the groove. That is, the follower is disposed about the guide rod so as to maintain a proper spacing between the tooth and guide rod. If the follower body were disposed on only one side of the guide rod, the follower body would likely lift off the guide rod when the guide rod rotates. Thus, the guide rod must be trapped in a follower passage. Further, the tooth is typically spring biased into the groove. In order for the tooth to fully engage the groove and/or to provide a mounting for the spring, the follower is a hollow body that is, typically, assembled about the guide rod. Thus, the autotrack device requires assembly steps that are typically eliminated when using a unitary sidewall housing.